Operai rejects Musk’s acquisition offer, says it was not an offer at all “

Operai has officially rejected Elon Musk’s Proposal to buy the non -profit father of the artificial intelligence startup for $ 97.4 billion.

In a brief letter to Musk’s lawyer on Friday, Openai’s lawyer, William Savitt, said the Operai Board had reviewed the proposal and determined that the very publicized “offer” of the billionaire is not an offer at all. “

The “proposal, even as presented for the first time, is not the best for Oai’s mission and is rejected,” Savitt wrote to Marc Uberoff, who represents Musk. “The decision of the OAI Board on this matter is unanimous.”

The president of Operai, Bret Taylor, said in a statement that the company “is not for sale.”

“Any possible reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our non -profit organization and its mission to ensure that Agi benefits all humanity,” he wrote, referring to artificial general intelligence.

On Monday, Toboff revealed that Musk led a group of investors in the offer to buy Openai control for $ 97.4 billion. The offer, which Toboff said he presented on Monday, was for the non -profit organization that supervises the Chatgpt developer.

“It’s time for Operai to return to the open source force and safety focused forever,” Toboff wrote at that time.

In Answer in xCEO of Operai, Sam Altman, wrote: “No thanks, but we will buy Twitter for $ 9.74 billion if you wish.” Musk is the owner of X, previously Twitter.

Musk then responded to Altman in X, with “swindler,“And in an answer to a different user, he called it”Scam Altman.“

The Musk-Altman drama dates back to 2015, when they were two of the founders of OpenAI, who launched it as a non-profit research laboratory AI. The friends and colleagues of a lifetime have become bitter adversaries since the appearance of OpenAi as a pioneer of generative AI through its viral chatbot chatpt.

Operai has been trying to become an entity for profit to take advantage of the enormous commercial demand of its technology. Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into the company, and Softbank is close to finishing An investment of $ 40 billion in OpenAI with an assessment of $ 260 billion, David Faber de CNBC reported on February 7.

Musk is sueing Openai claiming breach of contract and trying to frustrate his transition to a profit structure. He has also raised billions of dollars for his initial rival of the XAI.

With Openai still supervised by a non -profit father, his effort to flatly reject Musk’s acquisition offer can be complicated. This is because the Board does not have a fiduciary responsibility with investors, but is officially in debt to the OpenI letter.

Toboff sent a letter to general prosecutors in California and Delaware on January 7, asking that the offer for OpenAI will open. Musk saying In a court that he presents, he will withdraw his offer by the non -profit arm of OpenAI if the Chatgpt manufacturer stops his conversion into a profit for profit.

Joel Fleming, a litigator of equity litigation group values, said the joints generally have no legal risk of rejecting an acquisition offer.

“Even in a profit corporation, the directors generally do not face legal exposure for a response to say no ‘,” Fleming said in an email. “In a non -profit corporation, the objective is not to maximize the value of the shareholders, so there are even less reasons to think that the directors would face any legal risk simply by saying no.”

– Lora Kolodny of CNBC contributed to this report.

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